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From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.politics,can.politics
Subject: Re: Libertarians considered psychotic
Message-ID: <182@looking.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Sep-84 00:00:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.182
Posted: Mon Sep 10 00:00:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Sep-84 00:47:16 EDT
References: <5140@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 41

First of all, let's be careful about the terms used.  "Libertarian", with
a capital L, refers to the Libertarian party, which certainly does contain
some very fringe elements.   If you want to talk about the philosophy of
freedom, that's a different story.

No capitalist thinks that we don't live in an interdependant society.
The very essence of capitalism is free trade.   The capitalist simply
thinks that money, held in private hands, should be the machanism of
the economic system, not force as the socialists believe.

Capitialism supports the belief that we will work together if it is in
our nature to work together.  Socialism is the belief that we must
be forced to work together, whether we like it or not.

Now, of course there have been plenty of excesses under capitalist
society, although some will argue that they would not have come about in
a true capitalist (lassez-faire) system.  ie. that the problem is not in
the system but in our implementations.  I am not sure I agree with this,
but I do think that the excesses of our current socialist society are even
worse.

Our government takes almost half we earn and uses it very badly.  This
massive wastage of wealth is responsible in many ways for the amount of
poverty we have in society.  The government's so called social programs
destroy jobs, discourage the work ethic and encourage mediocraty.  They
do, on the other hand, provide some help in the direction of an equal
opportunity society, but they do it rather badly in my estimation.

Not all Capitalists are short-sighted, by the way.  Some are, but in no
greater proportion than politicians.  In fact, most politicos can't see
beyond the next poll or election, and businessmen usually have to think
further that that.

It's good to see the world waking up a bit to the philosophy of economic
freedom - if we stick on the socialist path much longer I have real
fears for the world economy.  On the other hand, it's sad to see other
movements to the so-called "right" involving anti-abortion, religion,
pro-weapons etc.   The journey of a "progessive" society (I loathe that
word for it's misuse) is towards more freedom.
-- 
	Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 884-7473